Previously : https://yourstoryclub.com/short-stories-love/bijus-love-story-butter-fly-effect-2/
Angeley silently moved out of the Station room, knowing that arguing with him any further is futile. The Station room is a hexagonal air, temperature and pressure controlled room, each wall of the room is at an equal distance from the capsule, residing at the center, the room acts much like a station, allowing safe boarding and departing the Time Cab. The Time Cab is a well cushioned vessel shaped like a mango cut in two halves slantingly, its lower half provides a cabin for one traveler, supported on a pedestal fixed to the ground, while its upper half dangling from metallic arms, clinging from another cabinet attached to the ceiling, that houses techs to distribute oxygen and maintain pressure agreeable to the traveler, in the cabin.
As she initiated the traveling suite from the control room, Angley felt a sudden weakness creeping out from her heart, an agony reverberated inside her “Stop him! stop him! he is going to kill himself for that damned girl”.
The screen flashed his vitals, which fluctuated way above the normal limit for a traveler,
“You can’t make this trip Banner, your health condition won’t permit it.” Angeley spoke to the microphone.
“I am alright Angey, commence the traveling procedures, take a note of everything, lets see what happens when a human uses it.”
She touched the flashing icon on the screen that said “Go” in Russian, the upper half of the capsule glided down from above, sealing the capsule, she tried to stay strong and think like a scientist, as she bypassed the procedures to ignore errors generated against Banners frail body. The countdown started “10,9,8 …”
“Angey always remember weakness is an illusion of human life, always face the truth bluntly and let the courage triumph .” Banners voice crackled through the speakers.
“And honey I love you.” this time Banners voice came out muffled and broken by a lot of other noise interferences.
The count down ticked closer to zero.
“Banner you alright, Banner!” Angeley screamed, ”Honey, are you there”.
This time a broken up chain of crackling noises emitted from the speakers, which died down as the countdown ended, “Transmission Successful” flashed on the screen gleaming green.
( II )
Dr Banner couldn’t remember how long he has been standing on the footpath, neither could he think of the place he came from “Home, office, market …”, his mind felt like a puzzle set, whose all the key pieces are missing. Only one name came to his mind Sravanti, he tried to tug at only thing he can remember hoping it will give him a purpose to be here. But only things that came out are two names, “Rajeev and Soham”, but he didn’t have a face to put on these names, not even Sravanti’s, but he felt she is someone important and something grim is about to happen to her, he concentrated hard again this time, a piece of information flew in, an address.
“I know this place, its just a few turns away”.
Its some kind of an eatery, its reddish brown door corroded by dust turned black in places, showing a lack of proper maintenance. He felt a sudden disgust about going in, he felt like he is going to throw up, if he went in, he tried to force himself to go inside, but failed.
“Biju and Sravanti meets here” this piece of memory hit him abruptly.
“Biju” Banner wondered, this name sounded awfully familiar .
He checked his watch and a frenzied fear clouded his mind, he needs to stop this meeting from happening somehow, it is why he traveled here, he remembered about Angley, his work with her on Time Dialing. His mind went on like an alarm clock whose stop is ripped out “Stop him, stop him, I should stop him, he will hurt her”, “Biju” he almost heard someone calling, a female voice, flashed before his eyes like a slide show, the precious moments of childhood between a mother and his son.
“Its me Bijesh aka Biju” Banner realized and felt himself with his hands.
Banner felt an urgency, he has to wrap thing up quickly otherwise something fetal is going to happen. His mind pointed to a direction, he saw a lone white ambassador car, parked in front of an closed shop.Without any hesitation he picked the lock, as if he has rehearsed this event many times over.
“Why stop me, whats going on” his mind felt like a dead wood.
He drove the car and parked it at a place, his instincts pointed out, Banner lost count of the time, trying to figure out what is happening, but his memory didn’t unlock in any manner. Suddenly he caught the sight of a boy checking carefully the lanes of the street, barely 14, probably trying to cross the road. The boy almost reached at the middle of the road.
Banners hands flew to the keys initiated the ignition in an involuntary movement, his foot stomped the accelerator, before he can figure out what is happening it is over within a second. He felt something hit the car, a distorted shrill scream shot into his ears, but ended abruptly, the car toppled on its head, probably because Banner got his grip back on his senses, and pulled the steering to the left as hard as he could at the last minute, to evade the boy, realizing the incident that is going to unfurl before his eyes.
( III )
Banner couldn’t feel his body, in the fading light before his eyes he went back to his school days, to the days he spent with friends Rajeev and Soham, to that day he met Sravanti in the canteen, after avoiding her for days. Sitting with Sravanti alone at a table, the guilt he felt, for trying to prove her to be a weirdo to Rajeev and Soham, to escape the derision by confused and directionless young minds, mimicking the reflection of the society, trying hard to become noticeable in the crowd of many. The gossip queens and the bullies ponced on the opportunity to bite Sravanti hard, armed with the arsenal of critically sadistic remarks made by him, Biju. The name that Banner hated the most, the name that is stained by a murder, he severed all ties with most of the relatives to forget the existence of Bijesh Banerjee.
Her eyes reflected her trust for him that day, which he couldn’t bear, they talked about many things in the canteen, she probably laughed after days, bearing the scathing attacks silently.
She wanted to go out with him again, which never happened, probably she wanted to grab the last ledge to climb up from the grim pit of dejection, she wanted Biju’s hand to get out from the chasm of relentless mental agony, the same hand that pushed her into the pit from her blindside.
Bijesh by no means was ready for the harsh punishment fate was going to dish out for him, the news was headlined in bold letters in every newspapers, and flashed in every news channels.
Sravanti hanged herself, she didn’t pin any blame on anybody, which felt like a slap on his face, and chased him through the alleys of his life.
“Let her live again, let her achieve her dreams, let good triumph over evil.” Banner prayed using all his strength of his last breath, to goddess Kali his only confidant of the crime in his life.
—- The End —-
